General News

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30636, 30 December 1964, Page 8

General News

500,000 th Visitor

A Christchurch man, Mr D. Wilson, of Bealey avenue, became the half-millionth visitor to the Hawke’s Bay Aquarium at Napier on the evening of Boxing Day. At a function held in the aquarium lounge the next morning, Mr Wilson was presented with mementos of the occasion by the president of the Aquarium and Water Garden Society (Mr G. Black). Mr Wilson also received a cheque from the society and presents from Napier firms. The aquarium has been open for seven years.

Seaman’s Gift The Auckland Boystown Police and Citizens’ Club received an unexpected present on Christmas Eve—word that Mr Hugh Joseph Smith, a ship's steward, who died at Lyttelton a year ago, had left the club £4500. “We never met Mr Smith, but his gesture in leaving us half his estate was magnificent,” said Chief Inspector C. J. L. Matheson, president of the club. Cool Easterly A moderate to fresh easterly brought mainy overcast skies and cooler temperatures to Christchurch yesterday. The highest temperature recorded at Harewood was 69 degrees, between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. At 6 a.m. the temperature at Harewood was 61 degrees, 64 degrees at 9 a.m., 68 degrees at noon, and 67 degrees at 4 p.m. 'The Government Life building showed a reading of 67 degrees at 4.30 p.m. Humidity was quite high during the day, ranging about 70 per cent. Colour Bar Auckland motel owners and reporters do not appear to have studied the maximum temperatures shown on television and the sunshine statistics. A report in the “New Zealand Herald” yesterday said new arrivals from as far south as Dunedin were easy to pick in camping grounds by their white knees or knees turned pink by the sun. “Many have donned shorts for the first time this summer,” the report said. “After two or three weeks spent swimming or lazing in the sun, the southerners will go home as brown as berries—in danger of being mistaken for Aucklanders.”

Animal Care Fifty kittens and cats, a dozen dogs, two pigeons and a canary which were either abandoned or left at the door of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals have been taken into private homes in Auckland. The chief inspector (Mr J. G. Doughty) said: “We did not have to put one kitten to sleep.” Busy Christmas The Medical Superintendent in Chief of the North Canterbury Hospital Board (Dr. L. McH. Berry) said yesterday that the hospital’s out-pati-ents department had had a heavy Christmas, but it was mainly routine work. There had been few accidents in the period, and he knew of no case of people having to be treated after excessive sun-bathing- /

Built Own Hospital Lepers at Lolowai Bay, in the New Hebrides, built their own hospital because local carpenters were afraid to work there, even though lepers had not occupied the site at that time. The cost of the buildings, which includes individual houses, dispensary, schoolroom, din-ing-room, kitchen, and bath house, was met by the New Zealand Lepers’ Trust Board with a series of annual grants of £3OOO, beginning when the work was started in 1958. There are 60 patients at Lolowai.

Accident-Free Years

The “Trail Daily Times”. British Columbia, has a proud notice on its front page. The October 26 edition says: “Trail has now gone 3602 successive days without a traffic fatality. Don’t be our first.” Mr A. Couch, of Rapaki, received the newspaper from his son, Mr D. Couch, who is now teaching in Trail. Trail has a population of 11,000. Beach Danger The police at Cooper’s Beach, north Auckland, where 800 persons are camped, are looking for youths who have been burying broken beer bottles in the sand with the jagged ends protruding. A small boy badly gashed his foot before the vandalism was discovered.